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Summary Animal Rights, ISBN: 9780192853608 Philosophy of Science and Ethics (GEO2-2142)
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Animal rights18 January 2022
15:52
Ch1: introduction
Example: facing pressure from activists, the European Union has decided to phase out battery cages
by 2012
reflects a major cultural phenomenon: the emergence of the contemporary animal rights
movement, which has challenged long-standing, traditional views about non-human animals’
moral status
o Most people are opposed to cruelty and sense that animals have moral significance
o HOWEVER, traditional views that sanction animal use with few constraints have
deeply influenced our beliefs and everyday practices
Throughout the world, chief sources of traditional thinking about animals’ moral status have been
religion and philosophy, both of which have interacted with science in shaping conceptions of what
sorts of beings animals are
History:
the Western tradition has largely upheld the view that human beings have exclusive, or at
least radically superior, moral status on the premiss that only humans are autonomous,
rational, self-aware, or capable of understanding justice.
o Animals are generally seen as existing for human use.
Non-Western traditions display significant differences both among themselves and in
contrast to the West. Viewing them collectively, one often finds two strands pulling in
different directions:
o a serious commitment to protecting animal welfare and respecting animal life –
whether that life is valued intrinsically or as a means to one’s own salvation and
flourishing
o but also the conviction that humans are more important than other animals
Animal rights movements:
1st significant human rights movement began in 19th-century England
o Lost momentum in early in the 20th century
1960s/1970s: civil rights movement's opposition to racial and sexual discrimination opened a
door to rejecting other forms of discrimination
o Concerns about pollution and destruction of the environment created room for
concern for individual animals
o Demise of 'behaviourism' in science
o Donal Griffin, the question of animal awareness: birthed cognitive ethology, which
studies animal behaviour in the context of evolutionary theory and posts such 'inner
states' as beliefs, desires and feelings
o Peter Singer, animal liberation: inaugurated an explosion of rigorous philosophical
literature on the moral status of animals – a topic that twentieth-century
philosophers generally neglected – while inspiring many people to become activists
on behalf of animals.
Recent animal rights movement emerged
Western culture has changed, becoming more receptive to the idea of animal rights and more
serious in exploring associated issues regarding animals’ moral status and mental lives. We are no
longer surprised to see animal activists on the news. Many people today are grappling with questions
,concerning the proper treatment of animals. They want to improve their understanding and
appreciation of the issues associated with animal rights.
Ch2: the moral status of animals
Moral status:
Having moral status = having moral importance in your own right, not simply in relation to
others. Your interest or welfare matters and must be taken seriously. You should be treated
well for your own sake
Different views:
o Animal cruelty is a vice we should not cultivate, because having this vice makes one
more likely, in the long run, to mistreat humans
On this view, animals' interests have no independent moral significance,
meaning animals have no moral status
o Animal cruelty is wrong because it harms the animal for no good reason. an animal's
welfare counts in its own right; it has moral importance, independently of how
human interests might be furthered by promoting the animal's welfare
Moral rights:
Three views/senses of 'animal rights'
1. The moral-status sense: having rights is simply to say having moral status
i. Any degree of moral status will suffice
ii. The animals' interests are morally important in their own right and should
not be overridden without good reason
iii. Animals have at least some moral status. Animals do not exist solely for
human use, so they should be treated well for their own sake
2. Equal-consideration sense: having rights is simply to say deserving equal
consideration
i. Someone's interests count as much as anyone's comparable interests
ii. Animal suffering counts as much as human suffering
iii. We must give equal moral weight to humans’ and animals’ comparable
interests. For example, animal suffering matters as much as human suffering
iv. Utilitarianism: The right action or policy is that which maximizes the balance
of benefits over harms, where the interests of all affected parties – including
both humans and animals – are impartially considered.
3. Utility-trumping sense: having a right to something is simply to sat that, at least
generally, the vital interest in question must be protected even when protecting it
might be disadvantageous to society as a whole
i. Strong animal-rights views: there are some cases in which people may
override someone's rights for the common good, but this is exceptional
ii. provide absolute, or nearly absolute, protections of individuals’ vital
interests
iii. Like humans, animals have certain vital interests that we must not override
(with few if any exceptions) even in an effort to maximize utility for society.
For example, animals have a right to liberty, meaning we should not
harmfully confine them even if doing so would predictably bring about many
benefits and few costs.
Indirect-duty view: our moral obligations or duties are directed only towards other human beings;
any obligations regarding animals, such as not to cause them needless suffering, are grounded
entirely in human interests, such as the advantages to humans of not fostering cruelty
False, because of the inability to make sense of our obligations towards animals
, 1. What is decisive in condemning cruelty to animals is the fact that one is needlessly
harming animals which makes an action wrong
2. While we are sure that cruelty to animals is wrong, we are not so sure that cruelty to
animals has pernicious consequences for humans
3. Cruelty to animals would presumably be wrong even in hypothetical situations in
which harmful consequences for humans were impossible
Suggest that animals have moral status and therefore have rights in at least one sense of the
term
A type of equality for animals?
Not all animals have moral equality
Centipedes, slugs and amoebas are not likely to be sentient
Sentience = the capacity to have at least some feelings. Feelings include (conscious)
sensations such as pain – where ‘pain’ refers to something felt and not merely the nervous
system’s detection of noxious stimuli – and emotional states such as fear
Not all sentient animals are equal
equal treatment for all sentient animals is not sensible, because
o animals have different characteristics that underlie different sorts of interests
o a principle of respect for autonomy applies to human beings, when they achieve
sufficient maturity, but does not apply to animals
Sentient animals do deserve equal consideration
o wherever a human and an animal have a comparable interest, we should regard the
animal’s interest and the human’s interest as equally morally important
Is equal consideration for animals a right?
According to the author, yes
The issue of equal consideration
The principle of equal consideration should apply to all beings who have interests, unless there is a
relevant difference between the beings in question that justifies unequal consideration
Likelihood of self-interest and pro-human bias works against giving animals moral status
Anti-animal prejudice is probable
This combination of logical and pragmatic considerations favours a presumption of equal
consideration for animals. This means that the inegalitarian, the person who favours unequal
consideration for animals, has a burden of proof: identifying a relevant difference between humans
and animals that justifies less-than-equal consideration for animals
Five major challenges to equal consideration:
Challenge Justification Rebuttal
Appeals to it is self-evident that being 1. many people, especially those
species human grounds unique moral who have thought long and hard
status, humans are unique about the moral status of
animals, do not find the claim
the relevant sense of ‘human’ is self-evident
hominid and that being a where reasonable people
hominid confers special moral disagree that some claim
status is self-evident, explicit
justification for the claim
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